Veteran’s Day – Never Forget.

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American history, Arlington National Cemetery, Armistice Day, FDR, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, General John J. Pershing, Veterans' Day, World War I, World War II, WWI, WWII

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum

The Veteran’s Day we celebrate now was originally known as Armistice Day until 1954. The purpose of the holiday was to commemorate the end of World War I on November 11, 1918. Presidents often participate in ceremonies on November 11th at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, now the Tomb of the Unknowns, at Arlington National Cemetery, which is located across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. President Roosevelt attended Armistice Day events at Arlington every November during his tenure in office. Presented here are photos from four of those years from the Harris and Ewing Photograph Collection held by the Library of Congress.
1936

In 1936, General John J. Pershing joined FDR in paying tribute at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Now Tomb of the Unknowns). As his schedule notes, the President “motored” out to Arlington at 10:45 AM for the 11:00 event.  General Pershing had served as commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War I.
Secretary of War Harry Woodring provided remarks, and Pershing placed a white chrysanthemum wreath on the President’s and the American people’s behalf at the foot of the tomb. A solemn crowd then heard a bugler play taps. The President returned to the White House at 11:45.

1937

In 1937, the President was accompanied by his mother to ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery.

1938

In 1938, Roosevelt arrived at Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the end of World War I. He was accompanied by his military aides Captain Daniel Callaghan and Colonel Edwin “Pa” Watson.
Earlier that year, he’d signed a bill making Armistice Day a national legal holiday. The future Cuban dictator, who largely exercised control over Cuba at the time, Fulgencio Batista, also attended the ceremonies. Over twenty years later, he’d be overthrown by a young revolutionary named Fidel Castro.

More important than any other guests, even the President, were World War I service members and war mothers. One such veteran was Alex Stern, who lost his leg at the battle of Meuse-Argonne. Nearby, Mrs. Rosa M. Cawood, a war mother, takes a photo of President Roosevelt during the ceremony.

1939

Armistice Day events at Arlington in 1939 were again a somber occasion to mark the sacrifices made by so many Americans, as well as their Allied counterparts, during World War I. That year’s ceremonies were held in the dark shadow of the new European war, which would ultimately become World War II. Acting Secretary of the Navy Charles Edison, son of inventor Thomas Edison, delivered remarks.

Source: National Archives/Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library

Fighting Big Education, Part II, the Framework

Tags

American history, civics, Education, Veterans, Veterans' Tales

Veterans’ Tales by Vassarbushmills

So that backward glance to the 1960s reveals that what we thought was just a blip in our history— Yankee imperialism, force-feeding Christianity on non-Christian cultures (trust me, I heard it all), and the best gag of all, our warmongering being forced on a culture of youth who only wanted to groove and get in touch with whatever visions peyote buds could produce. Yeah, man!

Fifty years later, we’ve seen those innocent children of the sun morph into the most vicious cultural nihilists since Adolf Hitler set loose the storm-trooper hounds on the people of Germany in the decade befote he launched the Second World War.

A few weeks ago I asked the question, what is it that causes a man to join the army, and risk his neck. when he doesn’t have to?

Our Allen Ness, the real sojur of this VeteransTales enterprise, replied that patriotism as I had it described in school in the 60s, had little to do with it; Pledge of Allegiance from 4th grade on, Sunday School about right and wrong, stories of American heroes, Washington, Franklin, Lincoln, in Social Studies, American civics in 9th grade, American History and American Government 11th-12th grade.

What I didn’t know was that Allen, a school kid in the 80s, in all likelihood had very little of the patriotic nature of America ever taught to him in the first place.

Get this: For over 30 years American school children in public schools have never heard the phrase “we hold these truths to be self-evident”! Still, let me tell you what some Soviet law professors did when they heard those lines for the first time in 1991.

They cried[…]

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Betsy Ross Day & Courageous Women of the Revolution

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American history, Betsy Ross, women of the Revolution

American Minute by William Federer

Addressing the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 19, 1926, President Calvin Coolidge stated: “The importance of women in the working out the destiny of mankind … As there were fathers in our Republic so there were mothers … By their abiding faith they inspired and encouraged the men; by their sacrifice they performed their part in the struggle out of which came our country. … We read of the flaming plea of Hanna Arnett, which she made on a dreary day in December, 1776, when Lord Cornwallis, victorious at Fort Lee, held a strategic position in New Jersey. A group of Revolutionists, weary and discouraged, were discussing the advisability of giving up the struggle. … Casting aside the proprieties which forbade a woman to interfere in the counsels of men, Hannah Arnett proclaimed her faith. In eloquent words, which at once shamed and stung to action, she convinced her husband and his companions that righteousness must win …” Coolidge continued: “Who has not heard of Molly Pitcher, whose heroic services at the Battle of Monmouth helped the sorely tried army of George Washington! We have been told of the unselfish devotion of the women who gave their own warm garments to fashion clothing for the suffering Continental Army during that bitter winter at Valley Forge. The burdens of the war were not all borne by the men.” Molly Pitcher is generally believed to be Mary Ludwig Hays. When her husband enlisted, she followed the American army to Valley Forge, enduring the freezing 1777. She was with a group of women known as “camp followers,” organized by Martha Washington, Lucy Knox, wife of Colonel Henry Knox, and Caty Greene, wife of General Nathanael Greene. These women scavenged for supplies, cooked food, washed clothes, formed sewing circles to knit and mended ragged uniforms and blankets, and cared for sick and dying soldiers. One of the ladies, Mrs. Westlake, described Martha Washington: “I never in my life knew a woman so busy from early morning until late at night as was Lady Washington, providing comforts for the sick soldiers.” At Valley Forge, over 2,500 soldiers perished from hunger, typhoid, jaundice, dysentery, and pneumonia, but also an estimated 500 women died there! At the Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778, Mary Hays- “Molly Pitcher” and women “camp followers,” carried water in pitchers to troops on the battlefield in the 100 degree temperature. Water was also needed to cool and clean the hot cannon barrels between shots, using a soaked end of a long ramrod. When Mary’s husband collapsed from heat stroke, Mary took his place for the rest of the battle, swabbing and loading the cannon. A British cannonball flew between her legs, tearing off part of her skirt. She uttered, “Well, that could have been worse,” and resumed loading the cannon. Soldier Joseph Plumb Martin described: “A woman whose husband belonged to the artillery and who was then attached to a piece in the engagement, attended with her husband at the piece the whole time. While in the act of reaching a cartridge and having one of her feet as far before the other as she could step, a cannon shot from the enemy passed directly between her legs without doing any other damage than carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat. Looking at it with apparent unconcern, she observed that it was lucky it did not pass a little higher, for in that case it might have carried away something else, and continued her occupation.” Hearing of her courage, General George Washington commended Mary Ludwig Hays, issuing her a warrant as a non commissioned officer. She was known as “Sergeant Molly.” A similar story is that of Margaret Cochran Corbin, wife of artilleryman John Corbin. On November 16, 1776, John Corbin, along with 2,800 Continental soldiers, defended Manhattan’s Fort Washington, which was being attacked by 9,000 Hessian mercenary troops. Margaret Corbin was bringing water to swab the cannon, when her husband was killed. She immediately took his place at the cannon, and helped return fire. Seriously wounded in her arm, Margaret Corbin, or “Captain Molly,” was the first woman in U.S. history to be awarded a military pension. Get the best-selling book MIRACLES IN AMERICAN HISTORY-32 Amazing Stories of Answered Prayer During the Revolution, women managed homesteads while their husbands fought. They worked the farms, raised families, and dealt with Indians the British were stirring up to attack. Women raised money for suffering soldiers, organized resistance protests, boycotted British-made products, which meant going back to using their old spinning wheels. Women engaged in the riskier roles as messengers, scouts, saboteurs, or spies. Many, like Lucy Knox, left their Loyalist British families who sailed for England, never to see them again, in order to join their patriotic American husbands on military assignments in shifting encampments. Lucy and Colonel Henry Knox did not have a permanent home till they were married 20 years. Esther DeBerdt Reed, wife of officer Joseph Reed, and Sarah Franklin Bache, daughter of Benjamin Franklin, organized “The Ladies of Philadelphia” and raised $300,000 for General Washington, who used the money to buy warm clothes for American troops. In addition to well known names, such as Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Dolley Madison, and Deborah Read Franklin, there were: Catherine “Kate” Moore Barry, the “Heroine of the Battle of Cowpens,” rode through the back trails of South Carolina to warn of approaching British troops and round up militia, including her husband, to join General Daniel Morgan for the Battle of Cowpens, January 17, 1781. 16-year-old Sybil Ludington, on night of April 26, 1777, rode 40 miles through Putnam and Dutchess Counties waking up patriots to join the militia, led by her father, Colonel Henry Ludington, delivering the urgent warning that the British had burned Danbury, Connecticut, and were fast approaching. Lydia Darragh, a Quaker, had her home commandeered by British officers for weeks. During their meetings, Lydia would hide in a closet under the stairs and listened through the walls. Hearing their plans, Lydia made notes on small pieces of paper and sewed them into button covers on her son’s coat, instructing him to go to General Washington’s camp at Whitemarsh. Her intelligence saved the Americans from a surprise British attack. Hot tempered Nancy Hart had her cabin searched by six British soldiers. They shot her prized turkey and ordered her to cook it. While serving the soldiers wine, she discreetly passed their stacked muskets through a crack in the wall to her daughter outside. When the soldiers finally noticed what she was doing, she pointed one of the guns at them saying that she would shoot the first one who moved, which she promptly did. Nancy held the rest at gun point till her husband arrived. She insisted they be hung. In 1912, railroad construction worker grading land near the old Hart cabin found a neat row of six skeletons. 22-year-old Deborah Champion, in September 1775, disguised as an old woman wearing a silk hood and an oversized bonnet, and rode from New London, Connecticut, to Boston, passing several British checkpoints. She was delivering an urgent message from her father, Henry Champion – the Continental Army’s commissary general, to General George Washington, hiding the important papers under the bodice of her linsey-woolsey dress. Deborah Samson (or Sampson) Gannett, after being freed from being an indentured servant on a farm, bound her chest, dressed as a man, and enlisted in the Continental Army under the name Robert Shurtliff. She served three years, being injured several times, but refused medical attention for fear of being found out. It was not until she became deathly ill of fever that the doctor discovered her identity. She was honorably discharged. In 1792, Deborah received back pay, and in 1805, Congress granted her a pension as a war veteran. Martha Bratton, wife of Colonel William Bratton, blew up a cache of gunpowder to keep it from the British. When questioned, she proclaimed, “It was I who did it!” A British officer held a reaping hook to her throat, demanding she confess where her husband was, but Martha refused to tell. Nancy “Nanyehi” Ward was a Cherokee in eastern Tennessee. Cherokee had sided with the British during the French and Indian War, and again during the Revolution. Nanye’hi learned that the British had incited her tribe to attack a nearby American settlement. She took the risk of freeing American prisoners so they could warn their village, one of whom, Lydia Bean, was expecting to be burned to death the next day. While a captive, Lydia Bean and Nanye’hi reportedly traded cooking advice, such as making butter. When the men of Pepperell, Massachusetts, went off to war, Prudence Cummings Wright and Sarah Shattuck formed their own militia of women to protect the remaining townspeople “Mrs. David Wright’s Guard.” Their weapons were everything from muskets to farm tools. DVD Miracles in American History (Vol. 1: Episodes 1-10) On JANUARY 2, 1952, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 3-cent stamp in Philadelphia to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Betsy Ross. Born a day earlier, January 1, 1752, to a Quaker family in Philadelphia, Betsy was the 8th of 17 children. Betsy apprenticed as a seamstress and fell in love with upholsterer John Ross, son of an Episcopal rector at Christ Church and nephew of Declaration signer, George Ross. George Ross, the son of an Anglican clergyman, was a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Constitutional Convention, being elected its first vice-president.   George Ross was a colonel in the Continental Army and later an admiralty judge in Pennsylvania where he refused to acknowledge the authority of the Federal court over State decisions.   George Ross’ sister married George Read, another signer of the Declaration. As Quakers forbade interdenominational marriage, John and Betsy eloped, being married by the last colonial Governor of New Jersey William Franklin, the son of Ben Franklin. John and Betsy Ross attended Christ’s Church with: -George Washington, -Robert Morris, -Francis Hopkins, -Alexander Hamilton, -Thomas Jefferson and -Benjamin Franklin. The Ross’ pew, number 12, was next to a column adjoining George Washington’s pew number 56 and not far from Ben Franklin’s pew number 70. During the Revolution, John Ross died when a munitions depot he was guarding blew up. Shortly after, in June 1776, General Washington reportedly asked Betsy Ross to sew an American Flag. Another woman who made the Grand Union Flag of 1775 was Rebecca Flower Young, whose daughter Mary Young Pickersgill made the famous “Star Spangled Banner” which flew over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 DVD Miracles in American History (Vol. 1: Episodes 1-10) A widow, Betsy married sea captain Joseph Ashburn at the Old Swedes Church in 1777.That winter the British forcibly quartered in the home of Betsy and Joseph Ashburn. Joseph Ashburn later sailed to the West Indies for war supplies, but was captured and sent to Old Mill Prison, where he died in 1782. Fellow prisoner John Claypoole later brought the news of Joseph’s death to Betsy, only to fall in love with her himself.   Betsy married John Claypoole at Christ Church, May 8, 1783, and together they had 5 children. The Betsy Ross Bridge across the Delaware River connecting Philadelphia with Pennsauken, New Jersey, is named in her honor.<!– –><!– –><!– –><!– –><!– –> The Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890, and incorporated by an Act of Congress in 1896, with the motto: “God, Home, and Country.”

Permission is granted to forward, reprint or duplicate with acknowledgement by American Minute, William J. Federer.

Valley Forge “Feet & legs froze till they became black … often necessary to amputate them.”

Tags

American history, American revolution, Christmas, Valley Forge

The following post is a re-post from 2016 but one I thought worth sharing.

American Minute by William Federer

Washington lost the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, and was force to retreat toward Philadelphia.

British General Burgoyne’s troops marched down from Canada through New York, but were amazingly forced to surrender to the Americans at the Battle of Saratoga, October 7, 1777.

British General Howe struck back in a fury, driving the patriots out of Philadelphia–America’s largest city and busiest port.

Philadelphia was effectively the capitol of the United States. In European warfare, when an army captured it enemy’s capitol, the war was considered over.

Rather than surrender, the Continental Congress quickly evacuated Philadelphia.

They even took the down the Liberty Bell and carried it with them so the British could not melt it into musket balls.

Congress’ last order, December 12, 1776, was:

“… until Congress shall otherwise order, General Washington shall be possessed of full power to order and direct all things relative to ... the operations of the war.”

DVD Vol. 1-Miracles in American History

 

The 11,000 American soldiers were forced to retreat 25 miles from Philadelphia and set up camp at Valley Forge on DECEMBER 19, 1777.

Meanwhile, another

11,000 Americans were dying on British starving ships.

Yale President Ezra Stiles recounted May 8, 1783:

“‘O that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears,’ that I might weep the thousands of our brethren that have perished in prison ships–

… in one of which, the

Jersey, then lying at New York,

perished above eleven thousand the last three years–while others have been barbarously exiled to the East Indies for life.”

Soldiers at Valley Forge

were from every State in the new union, some as young as 12 and others as old as 60.

Though most were of European descent, some were African American and American Indian.

Among them were:

–Marquis de Lafayette,
-Colonel “Mad Anthony” Wayne.
-future Chief Justice John Marshall,
-Lutheran pastor turned Major-General John Peter Muhlenberg, and
-George Washington’s Jewish physician, Dr. Philip Moses Russell.

Lacking food and supplies, soldiers died at the rate of twelve per day.

Over 2,500 froze to death in bitter cold, or perished from hunger, typhoid, jaundice, dysentery, and pneumonia.

In addition, hundreds of horses perished in the freezing weather.

A Committee from Congress reported on the soldiers:

“Feet and legs froze till they became black, and it was often necessary to amputate them.”

Of the

wives and children who followed the army, mending clothes, doing laundry and scavenging for food, an estimated 500 died.
President Calvin Coolidge told the Daughters of the American Revolution, April 19, 1926:

“We have been told of the unselfish devotion of the women who gave their own warm garments to fashion clothing for the suffering Continental Army during that bitter winter at Valley Forge.

The burdens of the war were not all borne by the men …”

Dr. Benjamin Rush, Surgeon General of the Continental Army, was tending wounds and treating soldiers at Valley Forge.

Two days before Christmas, George Washington wrote:

“We have this day no less than 2,873 men in camp UNFIT FOR DUTY because they are barefooted and otherwise naked …”

Washington wrote

“… that

unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place … this Army must inevitably … starve, dissolve, or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence in the best manner they can.”

The Continental Congress talked of replacing General George Washington with General Horatio Gates, but the Maryland delegate Charles Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration,  helped persuade Congress not to.

Get the book MIRACLES IN AMERICAN HISTORY-32 Amazing Stories of Answered Prayer

Hessian Major Carl Leopold Baurmeister noted the only thing that kept the American army from disintegrating was their “spirit of liberty.”

A farmer reportedly observed General Washington kneeling in prayer in the snow.

President Ronald Reagan stated in a Radio Address, December 24, 1983:

“The image of

George Washington kneeling in prayer in the snow is one of the most famous in American history.”

The Boy Scout Handbook, 5th edition (1948), in the section ‘Duty to God’:

“You worship God regularly with your family in your church or synagogue … faithful to Almighty God’s Commandments.  Most great men in history have been men of deep religious faith. Washington knelt in the snow to pray at Valley Forge.”

President Dwight Eisenhower broadcast from the White House for the American Legion’s Back-to-God Program, February 7, 1954:

“We remember the picture of the Father of our Country, on his knees at Valley Forge seeking divine guidance in the cold gloom of a bitter winter.

Thus Washington gained strength to lead to independence a nation dedicated to the belief that each of us is divinely endowed with indestructible rights.”

On April 21, 1778,

General Washington wrote to Lt. Col. John Banister:

“No history … can furnish an instance of an army’s suffering such uncommon hardships as ours has done, and bearing them with the same patience and fortitude–

… To see men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lay on, without shoes, by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet, and almost as often without provisions …

… marching through frost and snow, and at Christmas taking up their winter quarters within a day’s march of the enemy, without a house or hut to cover them

… and submitting to it without a murmur, is a mark of patience and obedience which in my opinion can scarce be paralleled.”

Despite these conditions, soldiers prepared to fight.

A Christmas carol that would have lifted country’s spirits at this time was “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” first published in 1760 on a broadsheet in London as a “New Christmas carol.”

It was “the most common and generally popular of all carol tunes”:

“God rest ye merry, gentlemen,

Let nothing you dismay.

For Jesus Christ our Savior,

Was born on Christmas Day;

To save us all from Satan’s power,

When we were gone astray. (Chorus)

O tidings of comfort and joy,

Comfort and joy,

O tidings of comfort and joy.”

In February, 1778, there arrived in the camp a

Prussian drill master, Baron Friedrich von Steuben, who had been a member of the elite General Staff of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.

Baron von Steuben, who was sent with the recommendation of Ben Franklin,

drilled the soldiers daily, transforming them from volunteers into a disciplined army.

Miracles in American History-32 Amazing Stories of Answered Prayer

Lutheran Pastor Henry Muhlenberg, whose sons Peter and Frederick served in the First U.S. Congress, wrote in The Notebook of a Colonial Clergyman:

“I heard a fine example today, namely that His Excellency General Washington rode around among his army yesterday and admonished each to fear God, to put away wickedness… and to practice Christian virtues.”

Rev. Muhlenberg continued:

“From all appearances General Washington does not belong to the so-called world of society, for he respects God’s Word, believes in the atonement through Christ, and bears himself in humility and gentleness.

Therefore, the Lord God has also singularly, yea, marvelously preserved him from harm in the midst of countless perils, ambuscades, fatigues, etc., and has hitherto graciously held him in his hand as a chosen vessel.”

Washington successfully kept the army intact through the devastating winter, and gave the order at Valley Forge, April 12, 1778:

“The Honorable Congress having thought proper to recommend to the United States of America to set apart Wednesday, the 22nd inst., to be observed as a day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer,

that at one time, and with one voice, the righteous dispensations of Providence may be acknowledged, and His goodness and mercy towards our arms supplicated and implored:

The General directs that the day shall be most religiously observed in the Army; that no work shall be done thereon, and that the several chaplains do prepare discourses.”

On May 2, 1778, Washington ordered:

“The Commander-in-Chief directs that Divine service be performed every Sunday …

While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion.

To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian.”

President Dwight Eisenhower stated December 24, 1953, lighting the National Christmas Tree:

“George Washington long ago rejected exclusive dependence upon mere materialistic values.  In the bitter and critical winter at Valley Forge, when the cause of liberty was so near defeat, his recourse was sincere and earnest prayer …

As religious faith is the foundation of free government, so is prayer an indispensable part of that faith.”

During the crisis of the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover stated at Valley Forge, May 30, 1931:

“If, by the grace of God, we stand steadfast in our great traditions through this time of stress, we shall insure that we and our sons and daughters shall see these fruits increased many fold …

If those few thousand men endured that long winter of privation and suffering … held their countrymen to the faith, and by that holding held fast the freedom of America, what right have we to be of little faith?”

Permission to forward, reprint or duplicate with acknowledgement granted by American Minute.

Once There Was a Magnificent Statue of King George III in New York

Tags

American history, King George III Bowling Green monument, New York, revolutionary war monument

All we have left of the statue of King George III in Bowling Green is a painting.

Independent Sentinel by S. Noble

Historian Peter Feinman, who founded the Institute of History, Archaeology and Education, seeks to bring the wonder of these subjects to the public and he has dealt with the subject of Confederate and other recently reviled statues.

Few know that there once was a beautiful statue of King George III in Manhattan that arrived from London on April 26, 1770. It was situated in Bowling Green at the southern tip of the island, Mr. Feinman wrote.

The statue, were it to exist today as an exemplary piece of art and history, tells the story of the American Revolution but a mob tore it down.

Besides pulling down the statue of George III, patriots also knocked the ornamental finials from the posts of a wrought-iron fence that still encircles the Bowling Green.

Much of the statue had been melted down into musket balls.

Other remnants of that fateful moment may have come to light at the Monmouth Battlefield State Park in New Jersey. Daniel M. Sivilich, the author of “Musket Ball and Small Shot Identification: A Guide,” said that nine musket balls found there seem to bear the same chemical signature — of lead, tin, copper and antimony — as samples taken from the statue fragments[…]

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Donald Trump, the Media and the Historians

Tags

American history, Civilization, Donald Trump, history, Media, Schweikart and Allen

Unified Patriots by Vassarbushmills

Some years ago an old friend, now passed, told me how his mother had been his religious mentor for most his life. There wasn’t a spiritual lesson that he had studied that had not been annotated by his mom.

He told me this to explain one of his crucibles later in life, for it seems that when his parents were in their late 60s, his father had undergone major surgery, but when he came home to recuperate, Mom refused to allow him to get totally well again. Possibly in some spiritual pact with God she had turned her life over to caring for him, and care for him she would, whether he wanted it or not. God had put him in her care, and she was going to keep him there.

I’ve read of such things. So in hearing this story I could imagine either a comedy or a tragedy unfolding. And tragedy it was. His parents argued about his driving the car to MacDonald’s for coffee with his buddies, or, heaven forbid, play golf. He couldn’t leave the room without telling her where or why. She even stood by the bathroom door when he had to go. He confided to his kids that every day was a combat.

After about two years of this, his dad left and lived alone the last few years of his life.

The purpose of my friend’s story was to tell me of his re-visiting his own relationship with God because of these events. Without elaborating, he said his mother did many things to blight his father’s path; sneaky things, dishonest things, even mean things. And when the children would bring those things up to her, she would alternately cry, or deflect, or invoke God in what my friend, at least, believed to be an unholy defense.

His confession to me was that everything his mother had ever told him about God, every annotation in his Bible, every underlined passage, he said he had to go back and revisit, rethink and relearn all over again, just to make sure it could stand alone. He had to learn God all over again without his mother’s fingerprints.

Something like that needs to happen in America now. More of our personal history has been annotated by the American Media than we know.

Donald Trump and the Media’s Russian Dolls; Defining History

An AP analysis only this weekend (7/15/17) stated that “the day-after-day drip-drip-drip of revelations over the past week about Donald Trump Jr.’s contact with the Russian lawyer in 2016 underscores the White House’s inability to shake off the Russia story and close the book on a narrative that casts a shadow over Trump’s presidency.” (Jonathan Lemire)

Jonathan Lemire’s function at AP, it seems, is to paint a narrative of an isolated Donald Trump, beginning when he first took office. So the drip-drip of the Russia story merely feeds into an already established profile of a man standing alone, which, if things work out, will also be a tragic figure. It’s not yet clear what part of Trump’s portraiture the Associated Press is supposed to paint, perhaps his furtive eyes, or maybe the dark office corner in which he’s crouched, or perhaps the thumb he will be sucking, but what is seeming to become clear is that various members of the Media have accepted this assignment to paint one part of Trump into an official media composite that will someday be made public…should be ever actually fall[…]

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